Germany: School gardens in Berlin
© dpa
The school gardens and gardening schools in Berlin are not just an educational tool. They also benefit biodiversity and climate protection.
The Official Website of Berlin
11 March 2025
Excerpt:
Almost 300 schools in Berlin have a school garden. Some of them are small but beautiful, others have won prizes and are the school’s flagship. What they have in common is the goal: to teach pupils about horticulture and agriculture, nature and the environment.
Sowing, planting, tending and harvesting are carried out under pedagogical guidance. Vegetables and herbs from the beds are often processed directly at school, and the fruit from the trees and berry bushes is simply eaten. The choice is huge. Many of the schools with their own gardens have planted apple, cherry and plum trees. Even the youngest children can get their hands on fruit from currant bushes and blueberry and blackberry bushes.
Berlin’s first school garden was created around 1750 by Johann Julius Hecker, a Protestant educator and theologian. It was located between today’s Potsdamer Platz and the Tiergarten. Hecker’s aim in creating the school garden was to combine school and vocational preparation. The planting and care of mulberry trees played an important role. Silk growing was particularly encouraged at the time in order to meet the increasing demand for locally produced silk.
Today, Berlin’s school gardens are dominated by low-maintenance vegetables such as radishes, carrots, tomatoes, pumpkins, potatoes and herbs. But beans, lettuce, eggplants, kohlrabi, celery, zucchinis, peas, chard and rhubarb also thrive here – often fed with compost produced in the garden and rainwater collected by the children themselves.
Source: https://cityfarmer.info/germany-school-gardens-in-berlin/
